37
"Do me a favor and wait a few hours...," she hears Piper say as she rolls her eyes at her mother on the phone. "Yeah and that's all I need, dad in a knee cast and you in a back brace." An open invitation she thinks as the blonde bends her neck to cradle the phone between her ear and her shoulder. "I'll be there in a few hours, I'm checking the train schedule now," she says swatting Alex away from the nibbles she's making at her neck. "Yeah she'll come with the kids Friday once they're out for the day." She writes down a few train times and powers down the computer while her mother rambles on at the other end.
"Yeah well it's Pirate Week at school for Harper and Jamie has a trip. I'll be murdered if I pull them out."
Alex takes the post-it with the train times, looks it over, then looks at the clock.
"Good good, I'm sure they'll catch you up to speed once they're there."
Piper ends the conversation, and heads to their hall closet to get a roller bag.
"You have time for dinner before you go?," Alex inquires as Piper digs out a large suitcase from their closet. "Why are you taking that one? Take a smaller one."
"I need the bigger one for their stuff. I can eat something if it's quick."
"I'll bring their things up when we come on Friday," she says making her way toward their kitchen. She opens and closes the freezer and throws something in the sink.
"You're gonna take both of them and all of their stuff all those blocks to the car?," Piper shouts to make up for the increased distance.
"No, they'll carry their own crap. Stop worrying about us and get your stuff ready," she shouts until she realizes Piper is standing behind her in the kitchen holding a smaller bag, to see if it meets approval. "Better," the brunette nods, "how'd your mom sound on the phone?"
"Ah you know, trying to act like everything's fine, but she's too fragile to try to move my dad around," she stands over Alex's shoulder to see what's being defrosted under the tap in the sink. "Glad I can go up," she says as Alex turns over her shoulder and pecks her on the cheek. She makes her way to their bedroom and stops in their main bathroom while Jamie heads into the kitchen,
"can we get a dog?," he asks Alex.
"No," she says without offering an explanation. She makes sure Piper is out of sightlines before throwing the chicken in the microwave for faster defrosting.
"Why not?"
"Who's gonna take care of it?," she asks opening the doors of their cabinets in search of particular ingredients she needs to prepare their dinner.
"I will."
Her head comes from behind a wooden door, "and when you're in school all day and at soccer til 7 at night, who's going to take care of it then?"
"I'll take it for a walk when I get back."
She crouches down to a lower cabinet and looks through some cans, whispering under her breath, reminding herself what she's looking for before she forgets, "corn, corn, corn, so this dog is going to hold it's pee for 12 hours?"
He pauses for a moment to think, "we can get a dog walker."
She passes him the can, "oh, you have a hundred dollars a week for a dog walker?," she sets a can opener next to him a moment later.
"A hundred dollars!?"
"Bingo. You can't afford a dog right now and we just don't have the time."
And that conversation is over. "What are you making?"
"Chicken and salad."
"Ugh."
Her head peers over her shoulder from the fridge throwing him the 'really child?' look.
"Can't we have something else?," he whines.
"Sure...if you make it."
He starts toward the top of the fridge but she clasps his hand, "something other than cereal and toast."
"I don't know how to make anything else."
"Well then it sounds like it's the perfect time to open a book."
"I'm already reading "Waiting for Godot," he says dully.
"Mmph, that's an awful novel."
"I feel like I'm waiting for my life to end."
She laughs, "there's a good monologue in there, but that's about it," she says rinsing off the lettuce. "I'll get you a better one," she tells him as she wipes her hands off and walks over to peruse the bookshelf. She frowns slightly but decides to pull 'The Scarlet Letter' from the overflowing, compact space. She places it on the table in front of him.
He lifts the book up and looks at her, "but you said I couldn't read this one."
"You can now."
He nods his head grateful for her book recommendation as he's yet to read through one that he hasn't enjoyed.
"Despite if I think your school book is brainless, make sure you finish reading that one, don't fall behind."
He looks at her, as if he doesn't need a lecture, "I can handle it," he says and heads off to his room, turning the book over and reads the back.
"I hope you can," she says to herself.
Meanwhile in the bathroom...
"What are you doing?," Piper asks as her daughter sitting on the sink, rubbing a solid powder stick against her armpit.
"Putting deroderodent," she says matter-of-factly and continues the up and down motion while she looks into the mirror.
"First of all," she takes away the deodorant, "this one's for men."
"Jamie's not a men."
"Man, she corrects her, "and he's a young man."
"Why does he get to use it?"
Hmmm, "to make sure he's not smelly," she whispers.
"Cause sometimes he smells like an onion?"
"Harper," she shakes her head unimpressed with her daughter's lack of tact, "yes."
"If I smell like an onion I can use it?," she asks as she's lowered off the sink.
"If and when you do, you can use it then. Not today."
"Ma, where's my lunch?," he says staring at her lunchbag and Harper's lunchbox sitting on the counter, ready to go.
"WHAT?," she shouts from the back of the apartment, "I thought you had to buy your lunch?"
"I have a trip today."
She comes rushing toward the kitchen and pulls open the drawer with saran wrap and aluminum foil, "what trip?," she asks having forgotten it was today. She smacks the aluminum wrap on the counter, "make a hook."
"Ahhhh, I gotta goooo."
"Ahhhh," she yells back and quickly tears the tag off the bread and untwists the bag that she had put away ten minutes earlier.
He bunches a wad of the foil and curls the end and runs off.
Alex slaps together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, dumping random snacks into a bag for him and hooks it on the front door not knowing where he managed to run off to.
"Arrr," Harper growls at her with her tin foil hand.
"Arrr, Deckswabber Lemonhead," Alex curls her pointer finger back toward Harper. She hooks her daughters lunchbag and gives it to her.
"Bye ma!," he yells from near the front door grabbing the plastic bag with his last minute hodge- podge lunch.
"Um, hello?!," she shouts back toward the voice.
His feet clap quickly at the floor, "what?"
Her elbow dig into her sides, her arms are stretched outward, how can you just leave? "Oh sorry," he says leaning into her for a quick sorry-filled hug, "love you, bye." -
Around one o'clock in the afternoon, her phone rings at work,
"ADI, Alex speaking, how can I help you?" "Mrs. Vause?"
"Yes?"
"This is principal Torre..."
"Oh God, is everything okay? Is James alright?"
"He's fine, I have a couple of things that I'd rather discuss with you in person if that's possible. Are you available?"
Within the hour, he can hear her long gaited steps from down the hall. She stops next to him in the office and asks him if he's alright. He nods, somewhat feared, she trudges over and lets the secretary know she's arrived.
In his principal's office, she's told that her son was caught kissing Lauren on the back of the bus on their way back from their school trip. While she's unsure what to say as she personally isn't bothered by this, she doesn't want to disregard this with nonchalance and have her kid's principal think she's devoid of morality. His voice breaks her trance, "...and is being invited to be a part of the National Junior Honor's Society, you should be proud." She's handed a regal looking folder, she stares over the shiny gold emblem pressed into the center. Principal Torre slowly opens the folder that rests in her hands, and pulls out the parental consent, urging her to formally accept the membership. "He clearly shows academic promise. I'm just concerned about the conduct," he says leaning back into his desk. Her hand covers her mouth and pulls slightly at her bottom lip. "They're kids, I understand, just some discretion."
"I'll talk to him. Thank you." In the car...
"I don't care," she tells him so his back could become less rigid and actually lean against the seat of the car.
"You don't?," he asks her surprised while leaning back more relaxed. "Wait, are you gonna tell mom?"
"I don't know... why are you kissing this girl on the back of the bus? Was that the first time..."
"Please don't ask me details."
"Do you want me to tell mom or not?"
"Yes, it was the first time."
"James, have I taught you nothing? That's not romantic."
"We were playing truth or dare."
"So she kissed you on a dare?"
"No, well yes, technically. But a bunch of the girls wouldn't kiss the boys they were dared to kiss."
"But she didn't back off?"
"No, she just wanted to go under my jacket."
"So you put your jacket over the two of you?"
He looked at her and nodded hesitantly, not knowing if that was a good move or not.
"Ok you're slightly redeemed." She makes the turn to head toward Harper's school. At the light, she reaches back for her bag, and pulls out the NJHS folder and plops it on his lap, "nice work."
He opens the folder and reads through the generic congratulatory letter. "I got in," he says under his breath. He sifts through the folder, as Alex pulls up to a red light, swiftly removes her seat belt and takes the "My Child is a National Junior Honors Society Scholar" bumper sticker and attempts to jump out of their car with intent to adhere the sticker.
"Ma no!," he grabs her arm and puts his full body weight into pulling her back in the car, "that thing is social suicide, please don't stick it on the car."
She's about give her counter argument, but she remembers the kids who had those stickers on their cars growing up, getting teased, regardless if it was malicious jealousy or taunting for genuine nerdiness. She sets the sticker down and gives his knee a squeeze of reassurance, "I'm proud of you," she tells him simply as she ruffles his hair and looks him over before forcing herself to shift her gaze on the road and wait for the light to turn green.
"You are?"
She's slightly taken aback, does he not know? "Yeah kid," in every way possible, "you're doing really well. Junior high isn't easy."
"Well it's not like I have choice, you and mom would kill me if I didn't do well."
"Well, we expect you to do your best. And your best just happens to be up there. So yeah, if we think you're not giving it your all, we're going to be upset."
He nods and looks over his acceptance letter once more.
She pulls up to Harper's school and puts the car into park, "just because we expect you to do well, doesn't mean you will. This," she says lifting the sticker from where it's resting on the console, "this is all you." She bends it back and forth in her hands, "can I at least stick this in my office? Or is that too embarrassing as well?"
"No, that's fine. Ma?"
"Yeah?," she says still looking at the sticker.
"What if I fail?"
She looks up and over at him, "fail what?"
"Anything."
"Did you fail something?," she asks gently.
He shakes his head, "no,... but what if I do?"
"You will...everyone fails... at something."
"You failed something?"
She looks at him astonished, and laughs out, "are you freaking kidding me kid?"
His eyebrow raised, did she just ask me that sarcastically because I just acted as if she was anyone else? Or has she failed at lots of things and thinks I'm crazy for not realizing this?
She raises an eyebrow back at him. Uh, genius? How could he possibly know you've failed at anything? You haven't exactly let him in. "Yes, I've failed," see, that wasn't so bad, "at plenty of things."
"Really? Like what?," he asks enthusiastically.
Her pulled lips accompany her glare at her son's eagerness to learn of her failures.
She unbuckles her seatbelt and shifts her position toward him. She looks into his face, do I just tell him? Do I throw everything down right now and just come clean? His eyes match the innocence that Piper once had as she lingered onto every word that the brunette let spill from her lips.
"I lost your mother once," she tells him.
He pushes himself lower into the bucket seat of the car, and props his feet on the dashboard and looks at her, "what do you mean you lost her?"
"I wasn't a good girlfriend, sooo I lost her...more than once actually."
He looks at her surprised, "you mean, she left you?"
"I didn't know what I was doing," she laughs, "sometimes I still feel like I don't. I didn't know how to show her how important she was to me."
He takes a while to say anything. "Some of my friends' parents are divorced."
"I won't lose her again," she tells him confidently, not wanting him to worry about that. "I know how to show her how much I love her now. It took me a while though."
He takes a long pause once more, understanding his parents weren't as solid as knows them to be now, "is that why you still go on dates?"
"It's one of the reasons, yes."
He nods in understanding, it makes sense now. She watches him as he mulls his thoughts over, she resists the urge to push him to open his mouth and say whats on his mind. "I want to take Lauren on a date."
Alone? No. She opens her mouth and closes it. You want him to trust you, she puts her glasses on her head, pulls the visor down and rubs the smudged eyeliner away from her lower lids.
"What kind of date? Where would you want to take her?"
"I don't know," he frowns a little, "the dance is coming up?," he says shyly with a shrug of his shoulder.
She looks at his face, is this what he's afraid to fail?, "she'll say yes."
He sits up some, "but what if she doesn't?"
"She will. She likes you too J."
"How do you know? Did she tell you that?"
"Yeah, every chance I get, I shoot her a text," she says wiggling her thumbs as if typing,"for an update about how her every thought is consumed by her love of Jamie Vauseman."
"You know what I mean," he whines.
"No I don't. We don't have some gal pal code kid."
"I dont know what you guys do... so, how do I ask her?"
"You couldn't have just found the courage to ask while you were making out under your jacket?" He turns his head away from her, here we go again.
She turns his head back to her, "next time you talk to her, just ask her if she'd like to go to the dance with you. Don't be afraid to take the chance." She sends a text message, and looks at him basking in his silence, "trust me, okay?"
He looks at her and gives the slightest nod.
Her phone pings and she reads her reply. "See, she said yes." He looks at her mortified.
"Im kidding," she laughs, showing him her phone, "it's your mom."
His hands cover his face, before he rolls down the window. She chuckles slightly, "kid please relax, I'm sorry," she apologizes realizing he cant take her teasing right now, "I'm telling you she'll say yes."
He sits up all the way, and glares at her while he puts his feet back on the floor of the car. "So what else did you fail?," he asks taking his best shot at humbling her while she looks this cocky.
"Really? Pushing it already? I just told you one of my biggest ones, don't rock the boat."
"Well there have been plenty right?"
"Yeah and I may fail to refrain from telling your mom about your first kiss on the back of a bus, on-a-dare." She points up toward the open window, "call your sister."
His dropped mouth, due to the threatened blackmail, turns from his mother, to the crowd of first grade pirates who've been let out into the school yard. He gets out to get Harper so she doesn't start running toward the school bus that normally takes her home.
She climbs into the backseat, her felt eyepatch covers one of her eyes, "I didn't know you were picking me up today!," she says pleasantly surprised.
"Neither did I," she says looking at her son as he gets into the car, "but Jamieeeeee," he leans his hands onto the seat and pauses, "got an award from school and his principal was very excited and wanted me to come see it right away."
Harper opens her mouth in a big smile, "can I see your award Jamie?"
He passes her back the folder while Alex asks them what they should get to eat, because she has decided she's not cooking. Jamie looks at Alex and they both nod, "Greek," as if there was another option even in the running.
"Can we get spanakopitapita?"
Alex chuckles at her daughter's pronunciation, "yes," she says as she heads to their frequently visited Greek place.
"Where would it be?," she asks Piper into the phone as she digs around under their bed.
"Try the boxes on the highest shelf in the closet."
"Gonna break my neck," she says placing the step ladder near the edge of their closet. She climbs up and tilts the boxes so she can see their contents. "found it thanks."
"Wait, can you tear out those pages and just give him those?"
"Yeah of course. See you tomorrow." She carefully tears the pages from Piper's book, skims it and finds the piece she's looking for.
She walks into Jamie's room, flips his chair around and straddles the chair. She points out the particular sentence she wants him to read,
"whats this?," he asks leaning in closer to the page.
"Something your mom and I wrote for you the day before you were born. I remembered about it when we were in the car, but look," she beckons him to read specific lines,
'and as hard as it may be I'll try not to let my expectations run your life. I hope you'll try things even if you're wary and know that it's okay to fail and I'll be proud of you as long as you tried your best. I hope you're able to laugh at yourself when you do fail, and know that with some thing's, some people, will simply just be better than you and that's okay too.'
"We expect you to try things and not always succeed ok? Expected it before you took your first breath, but were both here if you do fail at something alright? Try not to be scared."
He looks between the old pages, and his mom, but doesn't speak. "You want to read through it?," she prompts.
He nods and takes the pages from her hand. She watches him read through Piper's chicken scratch, his lips pull up in smirks, his eyes expressively change in amusement, love, confusion...
"why did you name me James?"
"'James and the Giant Peach' is one of both your mom's and my favorite books. All of Roald Dahl's books."
"Yeah I like them too."
"Of course you do."
'I'm so curious to see what you look like and how you'll act.' "Am I who you thought I would be?," his head tilts as he asks her.
She squints one of her eyes, "better."
He smiles back at her and continues reading,
"Mookie?"
"Aw, Mookie," she looks at him with sentimental remembrance.
He looks at her missing second head, weirdo.
She stares back with plead in her eyes, not to be judged, "hey we didn't know you yet."
"Okay," he mouths. She gets off his chair and sits slightly behind him and reads over his shoulder.
'I'm not even going to pretend that a carton of takeout from 3 different continents doesn't present itself in this home on a weekly basis,' he laughs, "that still happens."
"See, yet another way I've failed. You should have home cooked meals everyday." "I'm not complaining."
And though the wound was still fresh, he reads aloud at a grumble, 'you'll hear music from all over the world pumping through our speakers,',"I'm not even going to comment on that."
"You're welcome."
'I'll try not to embarrass you,' "another failure," he points out, "what are mom jeans?" "We've managed to steer clear of those, you're welcome again."
'I hope I made you feel like you can trust me and I won't judge you but I'll listen to you and try to help you as your mother and your friend.' She looks at him subtley, trying to read his face without him noticing. He pulls away from her and looks at her, "this is true."
"It is?," she asks relieved.
"Yeah, he looks it over again, "I can tell you stuff." And that's all he was giving her, she took it gladly.
'I know I will mess things up along the way, but you're my first, and the way I'm feeling right now, probably my last. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'll try to keep you thinking I do until you figure me out. "You guys do okay. Sometimes you're not fair, but most of the time you are."
"Thanks for your approval."
"Were you not planning on having Harper?"
"That is another very long story kid."
He continues reading, 'I keep trying to remind myself that I'm not always going to be right—your mother jumps at every chance to remind me of this too.' "Yeah you still like to highlight whenever someone is wrong, and you're right." He laughs again when he gets to Alex's section, "Mookie."
"Shut up! That was my name for you, it was sweet."
"Whatever, you're still one of the weirdest people I know."
"'Mookie' can make a reappearance you know?"
"Jamie's good, thanks."
'I made your mom wait a long time before I was finally ready to be a parent, I'm still not, but I want you so much. It feels weird to write that word to describe myself, sometimes I feel like you're already here, this person that I'm responsible for, but sometimes I still get really scared that I'm really not going to know what to do with you.'
"You didn't always want kids?"
She exhales exaggeratedly, "no!"
He turns over his shoulder and looks at her offended.
She sucks her teeth, "don't look at me like that. Not everyone should be a parent. There were...just things about myself that I wasn't proud of, never mind wanting my kid to be around."
He turns around to look at her, like what?, he begs internally for her to tell him. She reads him, his desire's apparent and she wishes she hadn't said that. The angst is evident across her face.
"With time, I let some of those things go, and tried to focus on the parts of me I was proud of."
He couldn't take it anymore, "what aren't you proud of? Did you do something bad?"
"James," she wags a finger at him then bites her nail.
"What did you do?," he pleads, "don't you think I've waited long enough? I can take it, just tell me."
"Its complicated."
"You always make me tell you things, even if I know im going to get into trouble."
"Because I don't want you going the same route I did," her voice is raised, "and I promise you I will tell you." She points to the letter willing him to continue.
'It blows my mind that you're pure, a perfect ball of innocence, that's untouched by so much of the madness that surrounds us daily.' "I'm not a baby anymore," he clarifies.
"And you're not treated like one. You've just got so much time to be ruined by the ugliness out there."
'Your mom has done an amazing job to keep you safe and Ill do whatever I can to keep you unscathed. "Yeah, including not telling me anything, ever," he says disappointed.
"I'm trying kid."
"Try harder."
'I promise I'll take good care of you kid and if I don't know something I'll figure out a way to find out, I don't care how many people I have to harass in the process. I do kind of wish that you'd decide you've run out of space and put on your miner's cap and look for the light already.' She watches his cheeks rise, he fights the smile at her humor. He nudges his shoulder, pushing away her chin that she chose to try to rest on him.
'Your mom is really sore and has been really patient waiting for you. The last two weeks have been rough, we're both foamin' at the mouth to finally meet you and bring you home. I can't wait to hang out with you and hear all the stuff that's going to come out of your mouth. I promise I'll read to you all the time, we have quite the collection here. I want you to have adventures like all the characters in your books. Sometimes mom and I sit in your room and read to you, you go crazy listening about all the journeys, I wonder about the questions you'll ask me.' He stops, sets the letter on his floor and comes up onto his hands and knees, and reads out loud again, "I wonder about the questions you'll ask me," his voice cracks, and continues reading in silence, 'or how many times I'm going to have to read the same stories over and over again, I'll probably have them memorized. Whenever you're ready, we're waiting.'
He stands up and shuts the letter away in his desk, "I'm waiting too, whenever you're ready."
They sit around having dinner at the Chapman's coffee table, for the first time ever, Piper believes, not able to recall having meals anywhere other than in the dining room. Harper has thoroughly covered her grandpa's knee cast in an array of multicolored flowers when Alex suggests Jamie show their family his latest accomplishment. Piper sees him rise without any enthusiasm, and was that a snarl? she caught toward the brunette; she wonders what went on between her son and her wife.
He sets the folder on the table, and shows Piper his letter.
"J!," she pulls him in, "this is amazing!" She shows the paper to her dad and then drags her arm toward her mother.
Her mother pulls her glasses up onto her nose, "very prestigious," she regards and eyes both Piper and Alex with a smile, "congratulations," she says and heads toward the kitchen.
Piper smothers him in an exorbitant amounts of kisses. Prestigious, she mouths toward Alex. Her nose turns up at a familiar smell, her eyes go wide,
"what is that?," she asks as her mother sets the cake down on the table.
"Marzipan?"
She bolts up from the table and heads into the kitchen.
Carol looks up confused, "does she not like marzipan? I can't remember?"
"No, Piper loves marzipan," Alex assures her and starts cutting the cake.
Carol seeks out Piper who's leaning against the refrigerator sipping the drink she poured.
"Dear, was that abrupt exit necessary? Alex said you liked marzipan."
"I'm sure she did," she says with another sip of her drink. "Mom?"
"Yes dear?"
"It recently came to my attention that you gave my wife some words of comfort, years ago. A time when she was missing her own mother sorely."
Carol's wrinkly lips purse, she leans into the countertop.
"I just wanted to say that I appreciate you not only coming around to accept who Alex is to me but for trying to connect with her. I wish i'd known sooner."
"I'm not so bad Piper."
"I know. Thank you mom."